


Dusty Old Memories

by reeby10



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Chocolate Box Exchange Treat, Complicated Relationships, Crying, Family Issues, Female-Centric, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, POV Petunia Evans Dursley, Photographs, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: Petunia looks through a photo album full of pictures of Lily and not so happy memories.
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley & Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Dusty Old Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chauntlucet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chauntlucet/gifts).



> I, uh, definitely went on with the angstier angle lol I hope you enjoy it!

The first thing Petunia did when they were allowed to return to their home was go up to the attic. There had been a lot of time to think while they were in forced hiding, and she had spent much of it thinking of Lily. More time, probably, than she had thought of her in the last decade.

In the corner of the dusty attic, in a box that hadn’t been touched since it had been put there when they moved into the house, she found what she was looking for. A little brown photo album, just as dusty as the rest.

She meant to take it downstairs, but then she thought about her husband seeing it and sneering, and she decided it wasn’t worth it. It was far dirtier a place than she usually would have deigned to spend time in, but it would do. She cleared a space to sit as best she could and then cracked open the album to the first page.

It wasn’t until a tear dripped down onto the third page that she realized she was crying.

“Oh, Lily,” Petunia whispered, watching as a few more tears splashed onto the album pages. “I’m so sorry.”

It felt like her heart was breaking all over again, all the hurt and jealousy and fear that had built up ever since Lily first got her Hogwarts letter overflowing and manifesting into tears. She hadn’t cried then, not when Lily left at the beginning or when Lily came back and seemed to have left her behind forever or when Lily died and did leave her behind for good. But now, she couldn’t seem to stop.

“ _You_ left _me_ ,” she hissed down at the smiling image of Lily.

The picture had been taken one summer when Lily had come back from school, the year before she got engaged, smiling and practically glowing with happiness. Beside her, Petunia had felt dull and brittle and ugly, and her jealousy had grown to hate. That magical world had never seemed more menacing, taking her sister and changing her into someone Petunia didn’t recognize anymore.

But, Petunia thought as she turned the page to see the picture from Lily’s wedding, perhaps it wasn’t only Lily who had changed. Petunia had refused to go to the wedding, hating the very idea of seeing Lily surrounded by that magical world, with her handsome husband. Her own husband had practically forbidden it anyway, terrified of the freakishness rubbing off on their fresh, perfectly normal marriage.

It hadn’t seemed selfish at the time to not go to the wedding nor to not invite Lily to her own, but now it felt like it had been. They’d had so very little time after that. Both newly married, with babies, then… Nothing. Lily had died and Harry had been sent to them, and still Petunia hated her. Hated her even more, probably.

She turned the page of the album again, and again nothing. That was the last picture. The last memory she had of Lily, and it wasn’t even hers. Lily had sent her the picture afterward with no note. Perhaps she too had assumed there was time and felt no need to try to bridge the gap between them yet.

Or maybe she had known the end was near and just hadn’t wanted to risk making things worse. She had, after all, apparently been in the middle of a war. A war that had come back to haunt her son, and Petunia in the process, just by being near. It seemed unfair that a world she’d never been invited into, the magical world, could affect her life so deeply.

Petunia had lost Lily to that world years and years ago, and then lost her completely to it not much later. Now Petunia only had these pictures, and vague memories of a time long ago when she didn’t resent her sister.

And she had Harry too, though Petunia had done her best to chip away at that relationship since the beginning. But Harry had felt enough for her and Vernon and Dudley to make sure they were safe when the magical war came knocking again. So perhaps it wasn’t a relationship that couldn’t be repaired, not like the one with Lily. The people who had watched over them and brought them home had said Harry was alive still, that he’d defeated whatever evil was haunting him and survived.

She flipped the album back to the beginning, where the pictures of her and Lily as girls were. Those were the happy memories, the ones she wanted to hang onto. She couldn’t take back the damage that had been done in the years in between, but maybe she could start anew, at least a little.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, brushing the faded image of Lily’s laughing face. “I’ll make it better as best I can.”

It probably wouldn’t be too hard to find Harry. Mrs. Figg should know how to at least. The apologies would be harder, but she didn’t think they’d be impossible. Harry had forgiven Dudley just before they were sent away from home after all, something she hadn’t understood at the time. Maybe Dudley would come with her if she told him what she wanted. She wouldn’t tell Vernon about it, but that was probably for the best.

She closed the album, holding it tight as she headed back down from the attic. Harry deserved to see what was in there. She knew Lily would want her to share those memories with him.


End file.
